Mark’s narrative of the baptism of Jesus is characteristically brief:
“In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And when he came up out of the water, immediately he saw the heavens being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.’ The Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. And he was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan. And he was with the wild animals, and the angels were ministering to him” (Mark 1:9-11).
There are several things here and in the immediate context in Mark chapter 1 that point us to Jonah.
Strange prophets
First of all we have, a very strange-looking, seemingly fanatical, prophet appearing in a most unexpected place preaching imminent judgement, with repentance as the only possible escape therefrom.
John, after all, was the son of a priest. His expected clothing was the linen of the priesthood; his expected place of service was the temple, and his food while serving would have come from the offerings brought thereto.
But no, John just appears in the middle of nowhere, in the wilderness by the Jordan (John the Evangelist tells us it was on the other, the eastern, side of Jordan), living off wilderness food and dressed in wilderness clothing. And he tells all the Jews from Judea and Jerusalem that they must effectively repeat the Exodus. Their holy city has become like Egypt and they need to undergo another Exodus journey and re-enter the promised land via the Jordan waters. And, says he, I’m baptizing you with water but there is One coming who will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.
John looked crazy. Most people would think he was crazy. After all, who in their right mind would live in the wilderness catching locusts to eat and breaking into wild bees’ hives for honey? But when they heard his message many somehow knew in their hearts that this was “the voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.’”
In his day, Jonah was equally unexpected and unusual. Israel had always been called to be a priestly nation and her prophets were called to minister to the nations (Elijah was sent to anoint Hazael king over Syria, 1 Kings 19:15), but few were the prophets with faith and courage enough to do so. Just as Jonah had to be forced into it, Israel and Judah were also forced, through their recalcitrance, into exile among the nations.
Jonah turned up in Nineveh only after having been cast into raging seas, swallowed up whole by a huge fish, marinated and bleached white in its gastric juices for three days, and then being spewed up onto the land.
With his distinctive Israelite dress, and his possibly strange appearance after his death-and-resurrection experience, Jonah certainly looked weird to the Ninevites and he must have sounded crazy to them. Just as he’d entered the fish, he walked into the belly of Nineveh (a city of three days’ journey) and proclaimed: “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!”
Crazy as he sounded, when they heard his message many somehow knew in their hearts that this was the voice of the true God and they believed. In fact, “They called for a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them to the least of them. The word reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. And he issued a proclamation and published through Nineveh, “By the decree of the king and his nobles: Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything. Let them not feed or drink water, but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and let them call out mightily to God. Let everyone turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands. Who knows? God may turn and relent and turn from his fierce anger, so that we may not perish” (Jonah 3:5-9).
Driven by the Spirit
This too points to what we find in Mark 1. For Jonah was driven by the Spirit to Nineveh and he had said: “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” The forty days were a reminder of the Deluge (Genesis 7:4), remembered by all nations. Even the animals fasted.
Parallel to this, we read in Mark 1:12-13: “The Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. And he was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan. And he was with the wild animals.”
What really reminds us of Jonah is this: “In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And when he came up out of the water, immediately he saw the heavens being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove” (Mark 1:9-10).
Now you’re probably saying: “How does that remind us of Jonah?” Well, Jesus came from northern Israel – just like Jonah (compare 2 Kings 14:25 with Joshua 19:10,13 and Isaiah 9:1). But the greatest reminder is in Jonah’s name, because the Hebrew word Jonah means dove. The Spirit descending on Jesus like a dove tells us that Jesus is a new and better Jonah.
Israel’s proper role
Israel, God’s Son, had always been called to be priests and then prophets to the nations.[1] Jonah refused to go to Nineveh because he did not want the Assyrians to escape God’s wrath and grow strong lest they subsequently attack Israel (which indeed they did).
When Jonah takes ship to flee his calling, the sea rages[2] and is likely to kill both Jonah and all in the ark-ship with him. Only when Jonah owns up to his identity and the reason for the wrath upon them, having the mariners hand him over to God’s wrath, do the seas subside.
Jonah is preserved inside a great sea monster (just as Israel will be swallowed up by, and yet preserved in, a great Gentile empire). So Jonah, as it were, dies and is resurrected to undertake God’s command.
He preaches, and every living creature in Nineveh fasts and prays to the true God for forty days. The fasting of the Ninevites and their animals was an act that demonstrated their belief in His word to them through Jonah. It was a self-imposed punishment for God to see that they recognised the punishment they really deserved from Him.
So the forty days come and go, and nothing happens. God has repented of the evil He thought to do to Nineveh. And Jonah is angry.
As a true Israelite, Jonah should have been willing not only to preach to the Ninevites but to act as a “priest” on their behalf. Despite having been shown that his “death” could save Gentiles, and curb the torment of the Gentile seas, he was still a reluctant intermediary. He was angry when the Ninevites did repent: When no judgement befell them he went out of the city and found a vantage point to watch what might become of them, hoping that their judgement was merely delayed.
A little gourd plant that had sheltered him from the heat of the sun perished and Jonah was angry because of it. He’d far rather it had been spared than the great ark of Nineveh[3] which would eventually be a shade to Israel. In God’s providence, Assyria was to be the big fish and the ark that preserved Israel from extinction among the Gentile seas, but Jonah didn’t know this and he did very little other than preach to them. He did not put himself in their place (which had saved the Gentile mariners).
The true Dove
From Genesis on, the dove has marked the end of the flood of God’s wrath and, with the olive leaf in its beak, is an emblem of peace and future fruitfulness (of Israel, God’s olive).
Jesus is what Jonah and Israel should have been all along – the true Dove and Son of God. Jonah reluctantly preached repentance to the Gentiles then stood aside and watched to see what would happen. In contrast to this, Jesus (the proper Jonah and the complete Israelite Son of God), being driven by the Spirit, goes willingly into a place of fasting, not for Himself but for a hardened Israel.
Jesus has no need of repentance. He is God’s Son in Whom He is well pleased. But He is baptized with a baptism of repentance and then the Spirit drives Him out into the wilderness where there is no bread. Jesus does what Israel and Jonah should have done all along. Jesus doesn’t preach repentance and then stand back to watch what God will do, hoping that judgement will come anyway. Even before He starts to preach, Jesus repents and fasts for Israel (and therefore for the nations) and then, having done that, He comes and preaches the Gospel and repentance in Galilee of the nations and makes disciples to do likewise.
So the sign of Jonah, of which Jesus speaks several times in the Gospels, is not just the death and resurrection of Jesus, it is also the conversion of Gentiles through the self-sacrifice of the Messiah on their behalf. Just as Jonah was thrown into the raging sea to save those Gentiles in the ark-ship, Jesus submitted Himself at the very beginning of His ministry to the torments of Satan and wild animals in the wilderness, and, at the end of His ministry to the cross.
Being in Christ, Christians do not usually fast for themselves since, by His Spirit, our Bridegroom is with us. But imitating Christ, we may (and perhaps should more than we do) fast on behalf of others – to seek a lengthening of days[4] on their behalf.
Jesus is our proper Jonah come to deliver us from the flood of God’s wrath. He was the only complete Israelite and they are only Israel who are in Him. For us He has suffered. For us He has prayed. The church is the olive tree that He has preserved and nurtured and from which His Spirit flows to the nations. May we faithfully follow Him and be fishers of men.
Rev. Arthur Kay is pastor of Trinity Presbyterian Church, Affetside, England.
[1] Genesis 22:18; Leviticus 19:34; Numbers 29:12ff where 70 bulls were offered for the 70 nations (Genesis 10) of the world); Deuteronomy 16:13-14; Zechariah 14:16ff; 2 Samuel 22:50; 1 Chronicles 16:24.
[2] The seas and isles are always associated with the Gentiles in Scripture and the raging sea in Jonah is a symbol of Gentiles growing turbulent when Israel defaults from her calling.
[3] The phrase “and also much cattle” in Jonah 4:11 points to Nineveh’s role as an ark.
[4] Lencten – lengthening of days (springtime) is where the word “lent” originates.